Half a century is always a considerable time in the history of the
universe, for the matter which forms it is always shifting; something is
always taking place. But the same length of time in literature often
goes for nothing, because nothing has happened; unskilful attempts don't
count; so that we are exactly where we were fifty years previously.

To illustrate this: imagine the progress of knowledge among mankind in
the form of a planet's course. The false paths the human race soon
follows after any important progress has been made represent the
epicycles in the Ptolemaic system; after passing through any one of them
the planet is just where it was before it entered it. The great minds,
however, which really bring the race further on its course, do not
accompany it on the epicycles which it makes every time. This explains
why posthumous fame is got at the expense of contemporary fame, and
_vice vers�_. We have an instance of such an epicycle in the philosophy
of Fichte and Schelling, crowned by Hegel's caricature of it. This
epicycle issued from the limit to which philosophy had been finally
brought by Kant, where I myself took it up again later to carry it
further. In the interim the false philosophers I have mentioned, and
some others, passed through their epicycle, which has just been
terminated; hence the people who accompanied them are conscious of being
exactly at the point from which they started.

This condition of things shows why the scientific, literary, and
artistic spirit of the age is declared bankrupt about every thirty
years. During that period the errors have increased to such an extent
that they fall under the weight of their absurdity; while at the same
time the opposition to them has become stronger. At this point there is
a crash, which is followed by an error in the opposite direction. To
show the course that is taken in its periodical return would be the true